posts tagged: knitting

This pattern has been in my Ravelry favorites for quite some time; I was excited to finally knit it! My cousin and his wife are due in May, and this little “sweatshirt” type sweater was just the thing. The whole front “apron” part is a big pocket!

I dove into my stash and found two remaining skeins of Cascade 220 in this gray. It was exactly the amount I’d need—though I ran so close to the end of the yardage, I didn’t even attempt the crochet edging in the same color. I did make the body slightly longer, as other reviews on Rav indicated it was off proportionally. (I think I added 10 rows.) I cast this on during a KBC retreat weekend in Lancaster, PA, and had finished nearly all of it except for one sleeve by the time I got home. I knit the body in the round to the armholes, then knit both the front and back simultaneously so that it took as little brainpower as possible.

The folding open of the lapels before starting the sailor flap seemed straightforward enough, and I’d read a few Rav posts that warned that this was tricky so I was prepared. I could see it clearly in my mind—I understood what was intended! And yet I got it wrong on the first try anyway. It was an easy enough fix, though I didn’t realize it until I was a few rows in because of the way the piece kept flipping on me. Not a big deal; ripped and restarted.

After knitting on both sleeves, though, I had a moment of crisis: The neck opening was too small, and it did not have a lot of give. I have relatively limited knowledge of babies, but I know they usually have giant noggins. With my mantra of “when in doubt, rip it out” echoing in my head, I laboriously frogged the sleeves, un-Kitchenered the shoulders, undid the sailor flap, and frogged down to the neck split. I decreased a few more times at the neck edge until I felt it was satisfactorily wide. This time, the sailor flap gave me no issues—aided, I think, by the fact that I did not bind off the top of the back on the second go-around. That time I left the stitches live, so I just knit them into the flap.

I wanted a neon yarn to do the edging, but also needed so little I didn’t want to buy a whole ball of neon (and I couldn’t find any neon around the office!). So this spring green made do, but I love the effect even still.

Of course, knitting for a baby due in May means making something for cold weather and then having to wait… and wait… to see them in it! Hopefully the 6-month size I made will be a perfect fit come next fall/winter for little Henry!

Sometimes after I knit something I just immediately cast on for another of it, with whatever yarn is handy. Occasionally I finish those idle repeats—more often they end up unfinished. But after finishing a sweater for myself (that I’ve yet to properly photograph!) in Malabrigo Rastita, I had a decent amount of yarn leftover, and I thought my favorite kiddo needed a new winter hat.

This kid. He’s been taught to call me “Aunt Erin,” but for a while there this winter, he would refer to me only as “Not Aunt Holly.” What a stinker.

But still, I knit him a hat. I gave it to him while we were out at a party, and he refused to put it on while there. Apparently though, later, upon getting home, he put it on and declared “I am Aunt Erin”! I’ll take it!

I don’t have much else to say about the hat, which I really love and I think looks great in this yarn—photos taken by his skilled photographer mom—because I honestly don’t remember. I think I applied many of the same guesses that I did for the red hat I posted about the other day (or did I knit this one first? I swear I do not remember). I’m sure that I employed short rows rather than working garter in the round with purls, because I’m lazy, but I couldn’t tell you my stitch count or needle size. I suppose when I go to knit more before this coming winter I’ll just do the math again!

My backlog of finished things is out of control right now, and I plan to get them documented ASAP! now that we’ve tackled the hacking of the site and corrected the outdated “pointing” information, I think we’re back in business. First up, a combined knitting and sewing gift for a wee one!

When I sent these two hats back in March, I told the mom it was “one for now, one for later.” Because she lives in a cold climate, I figured she’d still get some use out of a knit hat, and the bonnet was sized to be a few months older so that the little one could wear it over the summer. Of course, I know nothing about baby head sizes, and the weather stayed iffy well into late spring this year, so it seems the knit hat got a lot of wear–it wasn’t as small as it had seemed to me! And the bonnet is in full summer rotation already.

The knit hat is the Garter Earflap Hat from Purl Soho. I think this is such a cute pattern, and it knits up very fast. I used Malabrigo Rastita, which is DK weight, so I needed to knit one of the larger sizes in order to end up with a baby-sized hat. I used the final measurements for the baby size and coordinated that with my gauge to determine which size to me. (I now cannot remember the stitch count I used.) I did garter in the round (working a wrap and turn at every end of row) rather than alternating knit and purl rows in order to make it even faster. I ended up knitting a few extra rows because it looked impossibly stumpy to me; after seeing pics of the baby in the hat it seems that was unnecessary!

The sewn bonnet is also from Purl Soho (they design such consistently great basics): the Baby Sunbonnet. A friend had made several for her baby, and I was eager to try the pattern. It was very simple and straightforward and I had no issues, other than picking two fabrics to work together! I used very lightweight interfacing for the brim, because it’s what I had handiest, and two quilting cottons, and I sort of wish I’d had a slightly heavier interfacing to give the brim slightly more body, but it’s fine. It was done in one evening.

And it seems to be well enjoyed by its recipient. I mean look at that face!!

I’m a devout mitten-wearer, with several pairs knit by me or friends in constant rotation depending on the temperature and windiness of any given day. But I realized I needed a pair of gloves—basic, black gloves. Wardrobe staples are really where my head is these days. I could’ve just figured out my gauge and cobbled together a pattern myself, but a quick search revealed that Purl Soho had already done that work for me in the Gem Gloves.

I cast on with Skeinny Dipping Yarn while at my aunt and uncle’s for a weekend lazing by the pool last August. (I’d bought the yarn on my first visit to Gauge + Tension.) With the basic k1,p1 rib followed by stockinette, they were perfect for working on while socializing, and I steadily worked on them at the end of the summer. In fact, I finished the first one two weeks later back at my family’s place for Labor Day weekend! In a short time after I’d finished the second one.

Overall I followed the pattern closely, though when I picked up stitches for each finger I picked up lots more and decreased them away quickly in order to prevent any holes from forming. Each finger is custom built. No other alterations, and I’m thrilled with them. They’re so thin and light I’ve been tossing them in my purse even if I’m also bringing mittens so that I have a lighter option. They’re not toasty warm, of course, but they keep the chill off. Here they are on my Ravelry page.

Another cousin is expecting a baby! This time, I decided I’d do something other than the basic Child’s Placket-Neck Pullover that I like so much. But when you research baby sweaters on Ravelry they’re just all so much the same. I favorited several but ultimately I chose Ysolda’s Wee Envelope precisely because it’s completely different from all the others.

For this you start with one sleeve, work across the front yoke, then knit the back yoke, then the other sleeve. At the end you pick up stitches and work the body. It just seemed so much more interesting to knit. I had a decent amount of Malabrigo Arroyo from my Spinster Slouch leftover, and I was able to get close to gauge and a nice fabric on size 6 needles. (I swear I’m not a tight knitter, despite the drastic difference in needle size from the pattern!) I debated what size to knit, since the little one is due in November—and he’ll live in Georgia—so I had to match up my best guess on the kid’s size (his parents are both very tall) with what the weather will be like plus how warm this sweater would actually be . . . so I knit the 3-6 month size. It looks impossibly tiny to me, but I don’t know babies, so I figure he’ll fit into it at some time.

As I’d hoped, this was an interesting knit. It’s not mindless like the Placket Neck would be, and there was some weirdness (you need to pick up across the front yoke, but there’s an I-cord edge there! How do you pick up for that?! The blog post to explain doesn’t address this at all, so I just fudged it, which I have to remind myself is totally the point of being the boss of your knitting), but there were nice long stretches where you didn’t have to think at all. I suspected I wasn’t really going to want/need 2 buttons on each side (I basically hate dealing with buttons) but since I didn’t know the pattern—and there’s no actual schematic included—I just followed the directions rather than try to make modifications on the fly. In the end, though, the whole thing seemed so small that I just seamed the buttonholes shut. I am not sure that the parents would’ve even noticed the holes, but just in case, I made them go away. If I made the sweater in a bigger size I might include them, but future wee Wee Envelopes are more than likely going to be buttonless from me.

This definitely won’t be the last Wee Envelope I make: cute, fast (knit it in just 2 days), and the pattern includes a huge range of sizes. Yay for a new go-to pattern!